24 JUNE 2006
THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE
Adam, the
First Father
W hat was Adam like? Was
he actually made out of
mud? How intelligent was the
first man? Did Adam really live
for almost 1,000 years?
Evolutionists claim WILLIAM T. PELLETIER few thousand creatures—cer-
humans evolved from ape-like
creatures over millions of years. Early
men were supposedly wandering
hunters—primitive, grunting savages.
The Bible debunks this portrait.
Genesis records that God personal-
ly created the first man from dirt and
breathed life into the human form He
had fashioned in His own image. God
named him Adam meaning “earth.”
From mud to man by God’s own hand,
Adam was the first clay animation.
No animals were made in God’s
image. Among animals no helper was
found for Adam. Therefore Adam must
have been profoundly different from ani-
mals. Scripture makes a vivid distinction
between man and the rest of creation
which God commanded him to rule.
Human traits are often explained on
the basis of evolution’s imagined hunter
forebears. But not till after the Flood did
God give permission to hunt and kill for
food—more than 1600 years after
Creation. The “oldest profession” is
farming, contrary to a popular miscon-
ception. Adam and his first two sons
were farmers, not hunters.
Far from being an inarticulate
brute, the first man demonstrated
stunning mental prowess by naming
the animals on Day 6 all by himself—
Eve was not yet created. Some consid-
er this blatant Biblical error, since they
assume the task is impossible to do in
a day. But Adam only named “cattle,
BY WILLIAM T. PELLETIER, PH.D [WOODSIDE NEWS COLUMNIST]
birds of the sky, and beasts of the
field” that God brought to
him (Genesis 2:19,20). No
fish, insects, or amphibians
were named, and he only
named kinds, not today’s
numerous species descended
from original kinds. So
Adam probably named only a
tainly a daunting task, but
easily doable for Adam in no more
than half a day. Adam demonstrated
highly developed intellectual and lin-
guistic skills from the very beginning.
Consider innovative thinkers like
Aristotle, mathematical geniuses like
Newton and Gauss, musical prodigies
like Mozart, artists like Michelangelo.
Every gene for all these amazing talents
came from Adam. Adam and his early
descendants likely displayed far greater
capabilities. The historical record in
Genesis reveals men who rapidly devel-
From mud to man by God’s own
hand, Adam was the first clay
animation.
oped agriculture, metallurgy, and musi-
cal instruments as they built advanced
civilizations. They constructed cities,
ships, and skyscrapers.
How would Leonardo da Vinci
look next to Adam? One of the most
gifted men of the last millennium, this
artist, inventor, and engineer would
seem a retarded imbecile compared to
Adam. After six sin-ravaged millennia
of degeneration, it is impossible to
imagine how superlative Adam was
before the cumulative damages of sin
and genetic defects. Who was the
smartest man who ever lived? Probably
the mud-man, Farmer Adam.
Did Adam have a navel? No.
Adam was never connected to a moth-
er by an umbilical cord, so he did not
have the scar formed by severing it.
But Adam may have had something
else: a “ribbel,” formed where God
extracted a rib to make Eve. Counting
ribs is one of several ways to distin-
guish someone from Adam when you
hear, “I don’t know him from Adam.”
Eve likewise did not have a navel.
Adam and Eve could physically prove
they were the first humans. Navels are
anatomical evidence of descent.
Sin entered the world through
Adam. The human race fell when
Adam sinned, not Eve. Because the
first Adam sinned, he and all his off-
spring needed the last Adam, Jesus
Christ. For since by a man came death,
by a man also came the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in
Christ all shall be made alive. (1
Corinthians 15:21-22) Adam’s sin pro-
duced death. Christ’s obedience con-
quered death and produced life.
Theistic evolutionists argue that
death was part of God’s method of
developing creation. But then how could
death be the consequence of Adam’s sin?
Furthermore, why did the last Adam
have to die? If, as evolutionists say, death
was not caused by sin, then resolving the
sin problem will not affect death. But
Scripture links death to sin (By one man
The Woodside News
sin entered the world and death through
sin. Romans 5:12) and teaches that
Christ’s death and resurrection atoned
for sin, conquering death. Evolution
assaults the central message of Scripture.
Adam lived for 930 years, to with-
in about a century of Noah’s birth.
How is this possible? Before the
Flood, the young earth was a very dif-
ferent place. It is impossible to imagine
now what the environment was like
then. For example, “waters above the
expanse” (Genesis 1:7) may have signifi-
cantly blocked cosmic radiation, a
major contributor to senescence.
Nobody knows how God modified
human biochemistry to gradually
shorten life spans when executing the
judgment of death for sin.
Early in human history, long life
spans let men accumulate individual
knowledge for centuries. The snow-
balling result helped jump-start civi-
lization.
Men yearn for a “fountain of youth”
to extend life. But with long life spans,
wickedness tends to dominate goodness.
For a documented historical example,
consider the sin-soaked pre-Flood
world when Noah alone was righteous.
Evil had almost stamped out righteous-
ness, and probably would have succeed-
ed apart from the intervening judgment
of God. Thus it is not necessarily better
for men to live longer. The shorter life
spans God eventually imposed do limit
the cumulative effects of sin.
Genesis genealogies give 900-year
ages for antediluvian patriarchs. These
records show that Adam to Abraham
covered about 2,000 years. Abraham to
Christ was about 2,000 years. Adding
2,000 years from Christ to the present
totals about 6,000 years since creation. If
you cannot trust the Bible for simple
historical information like ages, how can
you trust it for reliable information
about the far more complex issue of res-
cue from sin and death?
Man is the crown of creation
(Psalm 8:5,6). Adam was the first
human, the first husband, the first
father. Adam succumbed to sin. The
last Adam conquered sin.
© 2006 William T. Pelletier
Dr. Pelletier may be contacted by email
at BibleScienceGuy@WoodsideNews.org